Those forward messages still reside my inbox… 🙂
He was a friend of mine… My classmate.. from 2006 to 2010… We don’t have much experiences together except those boring hours of lectures and some practical sessions in electronics as well as computer science labs. In first year, I still remember, he told me about the matrix multiplication looping construct in C programming language. In the coming years, we sat together in electronics lab with bread boards and IC chips. At the end of semesters, together we paid for some IC chips which were short-circuited because of our combined efforts.
The guy who never missed any class during the previous years was never present in the class during the final semesters. He was enjoying to the fullest with his friends and hostel mates and we could see him only at the time of Onam, Christmas celebrations. He was very fun-loving who had his own style of walking and talking which we can still remember.
During the final months he used to text me in the guise of some other guy, but was caught whole-handed. I still remember his face while we were standing in front of “our uncle’s shop” near our college. He managed very well to hide his mischief, but failed. Even after leaving he used to send forward messages to me, but just because of my busy sleep-work schedule, I unknowingly ignored those forward messages. Even after leaving to another state for some coaching class, he never forgot to send messages, but as usual, I never replied.
One day, suddenly I felt like messaging him and that thought was washed away by the tides of some busy matters. Also, I was in an urge to complete a week’s work and go to my home and have some leisure time.
On that day, on that very day, somehow I managed to send the shift report for the day at exact 3 pm and after signing off, rushed to the bus stand to catch a bus to the railway station. While traveling, I never used to attend any phone calls but accidentally I saw the picture one of my close friends appearing on the mobile screen. I was about to cut the call, but some sort of reflexes made me press the call button instead of rejecting it. I just heard one sentence from him in a feeble voice and that sentence was strong enough to shatter my mind into infinite number of pieces. The only sound which came from me was “when?” but my friend went offline before answering my question. I felt my eyes flowing after many days. Those forward messages started haunting me like the waves in a sea. I got down from the bus and moved silently to the railway station. I tried not to cry while I was in train, but I remained to be a big failure and I still don’t know how I managed to reach my home.
Those forward messages were teasing me so much that I even feared to take my mobile. I felt like his forward message echoing in my ears —
“Never take someone for granted. Hold every person close to your heart because you might wake up one day and realize that you’ve lost a diamond while you were too busy collecting stones…”
One day, he came in my dream and I was so happy that he is still here with us. In my dream, I saw myself going near him and apologizing for my negligence because of my busy schedule and I swore that I’ll never ignore him again in my life. All of a sudden I woke up and all those scenes vanished instantaneously, but on that day I understood how much guiltiness resided in my mind for not sending a single reply message to him.
Now I’ve accepted the fact that he had left us forever. He won’t be there if we plan any get-together in future. We will never receive his forward messages again. We will never attend his marriage function. We will never see him or hear his voice again. Yes, he had disappeared forever and I’m sure that for everyone, he may go hibernating in memories. But in my case, he will be remembered very often because, being guilty I understood a simple fact of life that —
“Never take someone for granted. Hold every person close to your heart because you might wake up one day and realize that you’ve lost a diamond while you were too busy collecting stones…”
Those forward messages still reside my inbox…!!!
